Yeah, it does look new. You should not see more than a 10 degree difference from top to bottom so something is restricting flow. You mentioned the heater core lines where reversed. Not sure that its anything to do with it but I would flip them back and maybe try the genuine 180 tstat as you mentioned. With my new radiator and 180 tstat I see 186 on the freeway and maybe 205 tops in traffic in the summer.

 

I don't want to start a panic... But here is the panic starter.

A friend recently bought a D1 and went to get the radiator rodded out. Shop said it was beyond repair and installed a new one. Less than a few weeks and it started overheating. Turns out the coolant passages in the engine block were completely corroded and clogging up the radiator.

He bought a used motor from me, no more issues.

Maybe try flushing the whole system? If all your efforts don't yield results, this might be the case, or maybe the heater core or both are corroded. You never know what the PO could have used as coolant.

I can't comment on the motorad, but I read plenty of reviews and opted to buy genuine LR 180 Tstat(grey one).

What a difference.

 

Yeah seems like radiator is inconsistent.. gonna shoot my tstat with my IR and see when it opens.. just don't wanna remove the radiator to find out it is fine..

BTW this IR thermo is great!! Now I know the surface temperature of pretty much everything around the house lol



But my heater is blowing hot air consistently as temps rise..

 

I'm pretty sure it looks like the radiator... The top of the radiator is hot, too hot to touch and the bottom half is cold.

 

Biggest difference will be the 180 degree thermostat. Trash the Motorad.
Get the genuine landrover 180 degree tstat. That will make the biggest difference.

Get a Nissens radiator from rockauto.com. Best $225 you will spend.

To test for blown head gasket - remove the lid on the coolant tank - when the rover is cold in the morning.

Start it.
if coolant blows out the top where the lid goes - then you may have an HG issue.

You could then let the engine warm up by replacing the cap.
Take the cap off carefully when the engine is hot.
Try again.

When my HG was bad - I got coolant blowing out all the time.

When I replaced the HG- coolant would never blow out of the coolant tank with the lid off.

Just my off the cuff methods.

 

I have a Nissen radiator right now from previous owner. The invoice says "remove radiator replace under warranty".
Was performed on 3/10/14 and 1,400 miles ago. What can cause it to get clogged already????

 

My radiator was stuffed full of stop leaks. I would hope someone didnt pour bottles of that into the system once everything was replaced, that would be odd. Do you see any little silver particles floating in your coolant bottle. If the radiator is really new it must be something else stopping the flow, I would fix the reversed pipes to the heater core and replace the tstat before I swap the radiator.

 

have you check the t-stat I just pulled new motorad out of the box and very scientifically set my keurig coffee maker to 186 degrees did not open, re-set it to 196 degrees did not open, boiling water 212 finally opened

 

Motorad is junk. Since the PO replaced the radiator and fan clutch already I would get these parts in this order.

1) new gray LR 180 soft spring $80
2) water pump $140

I doubt a radiator that new got clogged unless someone mixed the orange and green coolants causing them to chemically react and gel up.

 

If top of radiator is hot and bottom is cold, water is not circulating.